All things kitty cat!

The Devon Rex Cat

2008-08-19T22:26:00.003+02:00

The Devon Rex Cat

The Devon Rex Cat
By Omer Ashraf

A breed with a very curly, soft coat Devon Rex resembles the Cornish Rex in many ways. In fact it was discovered just ten years after the latter, in the same British Isles. Devon Rex was first seen in a litter of kittens in Devonshire. The cute baby was thought to be a Cornish Rex and initially bred with Cornish females to supplement their limited population at that time. However, it soon became apparent that the gene responsible for Devon's hair was different. Plus Devon had guard hair that the Cornish lacked, even as they were often sparse and easily breakable. Devon Rex cats moved to United States in late nineteen sixties, after their discovery early in that decade. By the mid eighties they had gained general acceptance amongst cat fanciers. As part of their development they were outcrossed with Burmese and American and British Shorthairs. Today they still remain one of the less common feline breeds.

Devon Rex cats have a deceptively slight body. They are well muscled and strong, weighing between six to ten pounds on average. Head is triangular and flat on top. Ears are big, low set on the skull and rounded at the tips. The big bright oval eyes are widely spaced and slope towards ears. Nose is slightly upturned. Fur is soft and curly and is seen in a number of colors and patterns including tabby, tortie, calico, smoke and solid. Hair break off easily and there are often bald patches seen on the body. Even the whiskers are curly and sometimes completely absent. Overall they are slender cats with an ethereal appearance, leading to them being called 'pixie' or 'alien' cats.

Devons often accumulate oil on their skin owing to their stunted hair that fail to absorb it. This alongside the accumulation of dust can lead to skin problems, and therefore requires periodic grooming and bathing of the cat. Also their large ears trap dirt readily and should be swabbed regularly. The short hair are beneficial in the sense that they don't lead to a lot of shedding and are suited for people allergic to cats. However they do mean that the cats catch cold easily and look for warmth in the winter by snoozing on electronic equipments and cuddling under blankets. Owing to past inbreeding, some Devon lines carry occasional hereditary illnesses including cardiac myopathy.

Devon Rex's personality is often considered to be a combination of a cat, dog and monkey's attributes. They are more curious and inquisitive in their nature than most cats, are affectionate and easily trainable like dogs, and are athletic and possessive of an unusual fondness for high places like monkeys.

The author is a blogger about cats and an expert on Devon Rex cats.

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Cats, Cats, Cats...and kittens!

2008-05-11T20:01:00.000+02:00

Nowadays, there are not so many stray cats as there were years ago - thankfully. It is not that easy to find a kitten when you want one! You have to go looking for it - perhaps finding ads in local shops or newspapers, or through friends. Years ago, there were many cats and kittens to be found wandering around the streets looking for homes.

People were not as kind to their animals years ago compared to nowadays - cats are now welcome in most people's homes. They certainly are lovely company! The cat in the picture above is a very treasured and much loved addition to our family! (Jakey!) She looks like a boy cat, we always think, but she is a little sweetheart and a very playful cat!

Stray kittens are quite uncommon now as most responsible cat owners have their female cats spayed. This is a good thing for the female cat who otherwise would go on to have a litter of kittens more often than would be good for her.

Kittens are very much like babies - they need lots of sleep! Kittens will dash around playing with each other, chasing each other and generally being very amusing to onlookers, and then all of a sudden they will tire, curl up in a little heap and sleep! If you do have children in the house, try and make sure that the kitten does not get over-tired and has an opportunity to sleep. If you are making a sleeping place for your kitten, then it is a good idea to use newspaper as an underblanket, with a blanket on top of the newspaper. The paper gets warm and retains the heat, making it lovely and warm for the dozing cat/kitten!

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2008-01-17T21:10:00.001+01:00

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Our lovely cat and her gorgeous kittens!

2007-12-16T07:43:00.000+01:00

Welcome to our cat blog. Cats come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, breeds that are simply stunning, and good old moggies, like ours! Please browse through and enjoy the pictures, find some useful cat information and advice and resources.

Genetics - Cat Genes

2007-12-10T23:13:00.000+01:00

Usually a cat has five toes on its front feet and four toes on both the hind feet. However, sometimes it can have more toes and this is known as polydactylism. It is inherited and geneticists think that it is a characteris determined by a dominant gene that may express itself in various ways. Sometimes, the abnormality (or irregularity) can be passed to all kittens in the litter, and sometimes only to half of them. Sometimes, all the kittens from a polydactyl parent can be completely normal,but then when those kittens produce a litter themselves, the gene can reappear in the litter producing kittens with extra toes!

If a black cat mates with a tabby cat, then it seems that the tabby markings are dominant over the black. This means that the dominant gene for tabby marking will be visible on any colour coat, but it is seen most clearly on the short-haired silver tabby. The standard for tabby pattern is oval marking over the shoulders and this is regular and distinct in its outline, and if the fur (coat) could be removed and the cat viewed from above, the head markings along with the shoulder markings would look like a butterfly.

When breeders of cats undertake a breeding plan to produce a new variety, even if it is successful, it takes a few generations of breeding back to make sure that the result is predictable and kittens 'breed true'.

The Manx cat has a very obvious genetic difference. It of course has no tail and if it does ever have a tail it is a half-tail. There are many legends to account for why the Manx has no tail. There is a story that says Irish Warriors removed the tails to decorate their shields and helmets. Then, to stop this happening, the nervous mother cat is said to have bitten off the tails of her young at birth. Then another story is that Noah slammed the door of the Ark on the tail of the last cat to enter the Ark. Also, tail-less cats from Spain are said to have swum ashore after the Armada and Manx cats are therefore descended from these.

So it seems no one is sure where they came from. There is no hard and fast evidence that they came from the Isle of Man, yet the Manx was featured on the reverse of a coin in their currency.

Rex - How the Cornish Rex came to be and then the Devon Rex

2007-12-10T23:02:00.000+01:00

What a beautiful creature the Rex is!
Genetics - The process of heredity is dependent on the genetic make up of the parents and the ultramicroscopic units of inherited material which are passed on via the genes to their offspring.
Genes account for things like eye colouring, colour of the coat, physical characteristics and sex determination.
Rex is the name given to gene mutations which are responsible for the guard hairs on the coat to be missing. The Rex cat has only the curly undercoat hair present. The Rex cat first made an appearance in Cornwall, England. The name of this cat was Cornish Rex. Then, just a few years later, in Devon, a Rex kitten was born, from a litter of foreign-type kittens. This gene mutation gave life to the Devon Rex. Where the Cornish Rex is warm and soft to the touch and has a slightly woolly feeling coat, the Devon Rex has a closer coat which feels more crisp and short. In the beginning, the coat of the Devon Rex was sparse and not very nice looking, but gradually, overtime, cat breeders have managed to eliminate this feature and now the Devon Rex has an adequate covering making it that little bit more attractive!
Cat breeders are now able to transfer the Rex coat to any colour or type of cat, and so although there are two standard types of Rex, Cornish Rex and Devon Rex, any other breed can be produced with the typical wavy coat with the guard hair missing. The standard for Russian Blue cats set out by the American Cat Fanciers Association, states that it is a

dainty cat distinct from all other breeds with its soft, lustrious, bright blue double coat, and that handling it feels like running a silk scarf through your hands.

If the Rex coat gene is introduced to the breeding plan of a Russian Blue, then immediately the Russian Blue will lose one of its features, ie. the double coat. There have been breeders who have experimented and resulted with beautiful varieties and therefore has been successful. However, only experienced breeders should undertake this type of breeding.

Cat Aggression - Treat the cat properly to avoid aggressive behaviour

2007-12-10T07:40:00.000+01:00

The cat can sometimes become agressive for apparently no reason. This can be for a number of reasons, and sometimes the cat may not be well. If a normally docile cat becomes aggressive, not just on a one-off basis but perhaps over a short period of time, then it would be worth taking the cat to a vet to see if there is a problem with the cat's health. Also this ebook, might offer some help as it provides a lot of information on cats, cat aggression, cat behaviour, cats fighting, cat toilet training etc.
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Watch funny cats!

2007-12-09T21:11:00.001+01:00

The Love of Cats

2007-12-04T07:42:00.000+01:00

A cat is a lion in a jungle of small bushes wrote St George Mivart, an authority on cats in the nineteenth century. It's not difficult to see the similarity of the pet cat to its bigger relative, the lion, when you watch a cat playing in the garden. Watching a cat as it stalks its prey, stealthily, silent, as it approaches its prey with sheer determination to kill it. When a cat is stalking its prey it focuses on it so intently that it seems to be unaware of anything else - oh yes, a determined cat is not to be messed around with!. The cat with its padded feet and huge muscle power, sharp claws and teeth, is built for the purpose of catching its prey.

The claws are sharper and more curved into strong hooks than in any other mammal, and by action of special muscles are withdrawn under sheath-like pads where they escape injury and wear and tear when not in use.

They have fantastic canines for tearing at their prey, and pre-molars rather like scissors for shearing off chunks of flesh small enough to swallow. In the cats eyes, the fibres of the iris, opening to the widest extreme, make the pupil expand to a full circle to admit the darkness of the night and they automatically and rapidly contract to shut off excess light during the day, whilst all the time allowing exact vision either in the dark and in bright light.

The cat therefore is a piece of precision mechanism from the lion right down to your little old domestic cat!

All cats can move on their toes very softly, rather than on the flat of their feet, and even at high speed powered by their fantastic muscles. Cats have extremely acute hearing apart from white cats with blue eyes. Cats hear sound far beyond the reach of human hearing and some people would suggest that a cat's hearing is better than a dog's hearing. Each ear contains twenty-seven muscles, and this enables the pinna, the part of the ear that we can see, to be turned in several directions to allow the cat o collect sound waves. Most cats enjoy music and it is not unusual to see a cat stepping on piano keys! They like some music and dislike others - just like us!

The World of Cats

2007-12-04T07:32:00.000+01:00

Welcome to The World of Cats! This is my little tribute to cats, who are often messy, noisy, disruptive, mischevious, angry, cute, scared, funny, but ALWAYS, ALWAYS, entertaining! I have three cats, and have grown up with cats, and although I can't say I ADORE CATS, I wouldn't want to live in a house without one! They are funny little creatures, and I think this statement sums it up:

You cannot make your cat do anything which is not to its own advantage! It has too much dignity, independence, solemnity and grace to learn tricks, yet every cat owner I know has a story to tell of some cute mannerism or cunning tactic peculiar to their own cat.

Swinburne